


his advent

by damedanbo



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-05 07:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20485427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damedanbo/pseuds/damedanbo
Summary: collection of ficlets about the remnants and their journey.





	1. Chapter 1

A flash of green, too bright. The snap of a leather coat, caught on the wind. A glint of metal, silver hanging in the air, carried behind him. The scent of gunpowder.

His gunblade is still smoking when he stops, a few feet away. He’s always been quick on the draw, even if always has only been a few weeks for him. His eyes gleam, pupils narrow to slits, not unlike something big and hungry.

And he _is _hungry.

The small creature twitches and goes still--a survival instinct, or a death rattle, he won’t know until he gets closer. It won’t be a good meal, but it will feed him and his brothers, and that’s all that he needs from the thing lying in the road. 

The creature twitches and leaps up, speeding off away from him, and Yazoo shoots again, a fatal shot that takes the beast limp to the ground in an instant. The meat is sure to taste awful. Sour, ruined, nasty. The others are going to complain about the flavor. It’s as foreseeable as Loz crying over a mild scolding, or Kadaj snapping at either of them.

Regardless, it’s been days without eating, and he wants to now. Nevermind how bad the taste is. They’ve all eaten worse, since they came into this world. 

Justification, excuses for bringing back bad meat to Kadaj? Yes. It is neither the first, nor the last time he’ll have disappointed his brother. He’s learned already to live with that, in a way that Loz apparently has not.

Neither of them are nearby, nor are they calling for him, but he can feel, like a pressure on the back of his skull, their impatience. He collects the corpse of the beast and disposes of the inedibles efficiently. He turns to head back towards camp. There is a truck coming down the road, billowing dust behind it, and he has a mind to shoot the driver for sport. Will they slow down, at the sight of a traveler on the side of the road, or speed past when they realize what he is?

His grip on his gunblade tightens and relaxes again, and he turns focus back towards returning to their camp, watching the truck pass him out of the corner of his eye.

They speed up.


	2. Chapter 2

"This tastes awful," Loz whines, tearing at his share of the meat. And it does, it's as disgusting as Yazoo had foreseen, but there's no reason why they can't still eat it. "You suck at cooking."

"Yes, well," Yazoo says, and doesn't say anything else. There's not much else to say, no reason to defend himself. It's the truth, and the meal is pitiful.

"Loz can hunt and cook from now on," Kadaj says, skipping over himself as an option for the task. Typical.

Loz whines, face falling. As much as he hates whatever the rodent is that they're eating, he doesn't want to be relegated to hunting duty either. That would mean taking the blame for bad meat himself.

"Can't you--"

"Quiet," Kadaj snaps without warning. He stands, dropping his meat in the dust, and staggers away from their campfire. Loz and Yazoo share a look. He's going to go talk to Mother.

She doesn't call out to either of them, never communes with her middle sons. She has little to no interest in sharing her infinite wisdom with them, nor stories of the reunion to come, and they only get by with scraps of information from Kadaj, secondhand and filtered.

"What do you think it is this time?" Loz asks, picking at his food and then flicking the pieces into the fire. They fizzle into ash on contact with the flames.

"It's not of our concern," Yazoo says, unwilling to eat any more, even if he was the one to kill the beast. 

"Aren't you curious?"

"No," Yazoo says firmly. Loz narrows his eyes into a glare, then huffs, following Kadaj's retreating form with his gaze.

"I am," Loz says. "I don't see why she never talks to us."

"We're extras," Yazoo says, finally tossing his skewer of meat onto the fire. It flares up, gobbling hungrily at the bad meat. "She doesn't need to tell us anything. She doesn't need us."

"Kadaj needs us," Loz says.

"Barely."

"He needs us! We're his brothers." Loz pokes grumpily at the flames. "You're stupid if you think he doesn't."

"He would be fine without us. We just make things slightly easier for him."

Loz scowls deeply, looking off in the other direction, towards their motorcycles. He stands, kicks at the dust and stalks over to them.

"Going somewhere?" Yazoo asks, voice bored.

"Maybe."

"Going to go sulk? Cry about it?"

"Shut up!" He's so annoying. Loz turns to glare at him, and Yazoo stares back, expression unreadable. Bored, probably. "I'm going for a ride."

"At night? You're afraid of the dark, idiot."

Loz can't think of a strong comeback to that, so he sticks out his tongue. He sees Yazoo's eyes roll.

He straddles his motorcycle and urges it to life, a roar in the cool dark desert. The engine snarls and shakes beneath him, and Loz grins, speeding off into the night. The cool wind beats about him, blowing his hair back and stinging his eyes with dust so that he has to squint to keep going. The campfire disappears behind him.

How much further to Brother? Kadaj says they're getting closer. And if Kadaj says it, that means Mother's said it to him. But how close is close? How many more days, how many more nights? He's tired of living on the road, of biding their time and waiting, of camping in cold places, hot places, damp places, dry places. One more day? Two more?

He can't see it, can't touch it, but he can feel the rotation of the planet underneath him, and somewhere far off in the distance is Midgar. And somewhere, near there, is Brother. And Brother has Mother. And Mother has the Reunion. When they find Brother, things will fall into place.

He slows to a stop on the cliff, looking out over the dark desert. He's getting tired of this climate, too. The snowy mountains were worse, because he was cold and damp and hungry. But it's not much better down here, he's found. There's not a place in this world he can stand to be. But when they reach Brother, and bring about the Reunion, that's sure to change. He can feel it, like the thrum of the lifestream, heavy in the air. 

A motor in the distance, coming closer. Loz turns to look and scowls. "Go away!" he calls when Yazoo gets close enough to hear him. His brother pulls up alongside him.

"Kadaj wants you back at camp."

"So?"

"Oh, are you being rebellious? Shall I tell Kadaj you're refusing to return?"

"Tell him whatever you want." Loz looks back out over the landscape, if you can call it that. Yazoo is silent for a while, and Loz listens closely for him to "hmph" and drive away, back to Kadaj and the warmth of the fire. Yazoo is predictable in that way; he’ll always go back to Kadaj, always pick him over Loz. Not that Loz can blame him.

"We can stay a while," Yazoo says softly, and Loz jolts and whips his head around to stare at him.

"What?"

"He'll wait for us."

"How can you be sure?"

"He needs us," Yazoo says, leaning forward to rest his elbows against the motorbike's handlebars. "We're his brothers, after all." Loz eyes him warily, and takes up a similar pose.

They are silent for a long while, doing nothing. Not moving, not speaking. Loz feels himself calming down, and he hasn't even cried yet. When Yazoo eventually fires up his bike's engine again and drives back, he finds himself following. They return to camp while the moon is high and the fire is burning low, and Kadaj wakes up and yells his head off that they've been gone so long.

But he needs them, nevertheless.


	3. Chapter 3

In the beginning, there was light all around. Hostile, burning light. Mother saw the light, and the planet it assailed, and she came down from the heavens with her dark, cooling power.

And they called her Calamity. And they hated Mother.

Do you understand?

“I understand,” Kadaj murmurs, eyes open but unfocussed.

And so Mother reached out her hands to the children of the Planet, and tried to help them. And they cast Mother away. Why would they do that?

“They were unworthy,” Kadaj whispers, eyes flickering with some kind of recognition. They’ve had this conversation before.

Who is worthy?

“Only Mother’s children are worthy,” he says, tongue heavy in his mouth. 

And what must be done to prepare the Planet for my children?

“The Reunion,” Kadaj says, snapping to attention as an engine roars nearby. Mother is displeased by the interruption, but she lets him go for now, her black inky tendrils releasing his mind to allow him back into the world.

Kadaj stumbles on his first step, exhausted and disoriented. He staggers his way back towards camp, as the second motor revs and disappears into the silent night. The fire is burning low when he finds it, and both his brothers are gone. Why? Did someone appear to fight them? Was it Brother? Shin-Ra? A beast? 

He could follow, but he’s so weak. Talking to Mother always makes him weak, and tired. Hungry. Their dinner was so meager. Kadaj sits on the rock by the firepit, grabs a stick to poke at the embers and prod the flames back to life.

He waits. His brothers do not return.

A feeling of dread settles over him. Where could they have gone? Why would they have left him? He feels Mother at the back of his mind, silent but watching. Judging. She says that they are his extras, his backups, not so much siblings as they are throwaways, un-human shields, spare parts. And he agrees with her each time, because she is Mother, and she knows.

But he knows too. He knows his brothers. Knows they wouldn’t run away from him, even if they are his extras. Knows he needs them, and they need him. Knows he loves his brothers, and they care for him too. 

So they’ll come back, right?

He slumps, waiting. He is so tired, but he can’t sleep until they return. It’s taking such a long time. His body aches, his mind throbs from the connection with Jenova. He’s so exhausted. He wants them to come back, to drive back to camp, park their bikes, and the three of them fall asleep together on their bedrolls in the sand. Yazoo, keeping watch on his right, Loz snoring on his left. Just as they should always be.

An engine roars in the distance--no, two of them, and Kadaj struggles to lift his head. The sound comes closer and closer, until he can see them, two black specks in the navy ink of night. They draw near, parking their motorcycles next to his again. Kadaj grits his teeth and stands, biting his tongue to distract himself from the way his legs wobble beneath him.

“Where were you?!” he yells at them. They take the verbal lashing in silence, Loz flinching and blinking back tears, Yazoo staring back at him, unaffected. He yells until he might collapse, lungs emptied of air and head spinning. Then the two of them come closer and help him to bed without being asked; the three of them lie down together, Yazoo on his right, keeping watch, Loz on his left, sniffling.

Things are not good, but they are as they should be.


End file.
